“Hee-ya!” An upbeat opening music and the accompanying whoop dissolve into the cheerful voices of three women who sound like they’re good friends at a cozy coffee shop, taking a pause from an animated conversation. But the coffee shop is really a recording studio, and they are podcast hosts who share a strong bond that has turned into friendship, a bond created by their experience with the ‘Big C’.
The C-word is something almost everyone has some familiarity with — direct or indirect, or at the very least, through fiction and cinema. Cancer carries both dread and mystique, a central theme in tragic romances and a force that undoes lives.
Community reach
“It’s the coolest club you never want to be a part of,” says a guest about cancer, on an episode of BBC’s You, Me, and the Big C — Putting the Can in Cancer. The podcast was started in March 2018 by three women who had been diagnosed with cancer: Rachael Bland and Lauren Mahon who were diagnosed with breast cancer, and [Dame] Deborah James, who took on the social media handle ‘bowelbabe’ after her diagnosis of what she jokingly refers to as the “poo cancer”.
Having started the podcast to demystify the disease and its treatment, they look the ‘Big C’ hard in the eye, speak with disarming frankness about how it has affected their lives in every which way, and laugh and cry about it in equal measure.
Bland, the only one of the three with professional broadcasting experience, died just six months after the show started, while James died in June this year. Mahon quipped, ironically, in the special live tribute to James (June 29), “I don’t think there are many podcasts... whose co-hosts are not with them because they have died of the subject matter.” The podcast received the top prize at the British Podcast Awards this year, for its contribution “to raising awareness about cancer communities.”
Around the podverse
Some notable listens this month
Keeping it real
Over the past four years, the hosts have tackled a range of issues related to the science of cancer, and the emotional, physical, and psychological impact on both, those who have it and their carers. Guests on the show are not only medical professionals, but family and community members, including those who have lost a partner or a parent to cancer and are trying to move on. Steve, Bland’s partner, joined the show as a co-host after her death, bringing in a viewpoint that is often missed — that of the carer community.
What makes the show refreshing is its no-nonsense tone. Early episodes have the three women talking about how the diagnosis has affected dating and relationships, the challenges of parenting, the fear of recurrence, and about hope and new-found pleasures, peppering their talk with personal anecdotes that keep it real. They don’t shy away from the economics and politics of cancer, and the realities of financing and finding the right kind of care.
You, Me and the Big C is not a difficult show to listen to, despite the serious subject. The hosts keep it simple, light, and true to their experience, asking and answering questions in layperson terms. It strikes a universal chord because after all, we worry about the same things when it comes to sickness and health.
The Hyderabad-based writer and academic is a neatnik fighting a losing battle with the clutter in her head.
